Recently I wrote a column about the variegated conspiracy theories that surround accounts of Nine-Eleven. Friends warned me against it. They said that the resulting attack on me would make the Normandy Landing look like a church picnic. It did. I believe that if you drew and quartered a conspiracy theorist’s children and even shot his dog, he would behave civilly. Question his theory, and you better run like hell.

Anyhow, it got me to thinking about space-aliens, and how they are just about everywhere, and you can’t water the lawn without bumping into at least three of them. This in turn got me to thinking about conspiracy theories in general. Such as:

“UFOs are real and, in fact, the aliens who traveled here in their interstellar flying discs now work for the United States government — according to a top aerospace scientist who died in August, but left behind an extraordinary deathbed interview in which he reveals his high-level, inside knowledge of the United States …Oct 28, 2014”

Well, damn. I guess that settles it.

The story goes on: “Top Area 51 scientist reveals in deathbed video. Eighteen aliens work for US government “ (Hillary, I would assume.)

To be a real Conspiracy Theory, upper case, a plot cannot assert merely that evil is being done by some entity for the usual sordid purposes of money or power, such as that the pharmaceutical industry conspires to fix prices. Typically it must posit that dark forces, usually the government, particularly the CIA and the military, but sometimes Jews, are hiding something foul or of terrible importance. As I understand it, the currently favored theory of Nine-Eleven holds that Mossad brought the towers down, though it is often blamed on the US military or Larry Silverstein, the owner, who did it for the insurance.

Now, if Israel did it, a major act of war, clearly we should bomb Tel Aviv. Why do the conspiracy theorists not suggest this? Because the theories are amusements, video games without all those buttons.

Examples of theories are that, as mentioned, Israel destroyed the Twin Towers with a controlled demolition, that the government hid the existence of large number of POWs left behind in Vietnam, that the moon landings were faked, that the government is building FEMA camps for imprisoning most of the population, that the Holocaust was faked, that practically everybody assassinated JFK, that the Navy shot down Flight Flight 800, that the government is concealing the existence of extraterrestrials, and that fluoridated water is a conspiracy to lower our national intelligence, assuming this to be possible.

One notices inconsistencies. Well, normal people do. Conspiracy buffs do not. Note that on one hand, the Nine-Eleven planes were flown by remote control:

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“Imagining that teams of hijackers could successfully take over four jetliners then flawlessly fly three of them into relatively small targets, even though none had ever flown a jet, requires enormous leaps of faith. In contrast, robotically flying the jetliners into their targets could have been accomplished using the flight control computers that were standard equipment on the targeted planes.”

I guess nobody noticed the absence of pilots.

On the other hand, the planes didn’t exist at all. This raises the philosophical question as to whether nonexistent planes must be flown by nonexistent robotics, and how you could tell.

Characteristically, believers in conspiracies display absolute certainty, regard pityingly those not of the faith, ignore contradictory evidence, and are made as uncomfortable by logic as they would be by an insane aunt kept in the attic. For example, the furiously held belief that the moon landings were faked would seem to contradict the belief furiously held by others that Neil Armstrong saw alien ships on the moon. A logician would think either A, or B, or neither, but not both. Nope. This isn’t just fuzzy logic. It is a virtual hairball.

“Were US Astronauts Ordered Not To Report UFOs & Aliens?

The existence of Moon Maid has been confirmed by police sources, specifically Detective Lieutenant Richard Tracy, who later mysteriously disappeared. It is widely rumored that he was erased by the CIA.

“There are buildings on the Moon. There is mining equipment on the Moon. Photos, NASA photos, do exist which clearly show both of these. Hundreds, but probably thousands, of NASA photos have been tampered with. Specifically, by careful use of an airbrush, flying saucers and other UFOs can be removed….”

This is good to know. If they invade the earth we can simply airbrush them to death, sssssssssss.

This book at Amazon ends all doubt : We Discovered Alien Bases on the Moon

I have been told on several occasions that the unexplained large markings in Peru–Nazca lines–were made to guide ancient astronauts to landing fields. This assumes reasonably that space aliens with the technology to get here from other star systems cannot navigate without large mounds of dirt to help them.

Space-alien GPS. Certainly looks like a space-alien.

Nothing could make more sense, I say.

A good Conspiracy Theory is always supported by assertions that large numbers of eyewitnesses and experts confirm the theory (“top aerospace scientist who died….), that countless doctors or pilots or engineers or several astronauts have said as much, but are either suppressed by the media or threatened into silence by the government.

“Repeated doses of infinitesimal amounts of fluoride will in time reduce an individual`s power to resist domination, by slowly poisoning and narcotizing a certain area of the brain.”

Well, OK. But at least we have good teeth. I concede that the students of American universities lend a certain credence to this theory.

Unnoticed FEMA camps. If for arithmetic convenience we assume a figure of 33 1/3 guards on duty per camp, that’s 100 per camp for three shifts, (never mind weekends, cooks, administrators, maintenance staff) or 80,000 unnoticed, off-budget guards, kept hermetically secret by the FEMA bureaucracy as well as the surrounding population.

The theorists often are intelligent and sophisticated, and certainly common. I know four here in Mexico, all gringos. One of them believes that the passenger manifests of the hijacked Nine-Eleven planes, manifests which he cannot possibly have seen, reveal that the Arab hijackers were not aboard. Well, it was on the internet somewhere, so it must be true. Another specializes in FEMA camps, but has sidelines I think in Nine-Eleven and fraudulent moon landings.The last two believe, really, that strange reptilian creatures from space secretly rule the earth. It’s in some book. None of these people are crazy or even otherwise eccentric, and all are bright.

Those who believe in one theory usually believe in others. The theories typically view large organizations as tightly united in secret evil, as unitary globs of malevolence, a bit like the evil spirits of primitive societies, and able to keep dark secrets even though though large numbers, often of ordinary employees, would have to know of the plot. For example, one version of the attack on the Pentagon holds that a missile (type unspecified) was fired by a Navy ship (ship unspecified). This means that the entire crew, several hundred ordinary sailors–not CIA operatives or Thirty-Third Degree Masons–as well as higher-ups would quickly know that they had just blown up the Pentagon. Yet it never leaked out.

This is true of almost all conspiracy theories: We must regard substantial populations of unruly individuals, all thinking different things, liberals, conservatives, rebels, herd-followers, Christians, Jews, agnostics, atheists, moral, immoral, amoral, thoughtful, thoughtless, sophisticated, or rubes–as reliably being willing to hush up such things as mass murder. This is the stuff of dreams.

I think revealing top secret documents is a crime in England, and is in the US.

A major part of the theory that the Moon landings were faked is that Stanley Kubrick was engaged by the government to do the faking. According to this site, Nazi scientists during WWII invented highly advanced flying saucers (honest: read the link) which were confiscated by the shadow government of the US and hidden from the public, so that….

Note: Due to technical problems under resolution, my email button is misbehaving, but death threats can be sent to jetpossum-readers@yahoo.com . However, the letters pdq must be in the subject line or your denunciation will be heartlessly auto-deleted.

Well OK you silly cunt. Tell me. What happened on 9/11. You can’t because you don’t know. If you wanted to know you would have to subscribe to or invent a conspiracy theory. Theorizing may be a waste of time. But willful ignorance is not a virtue.

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Abortion is clearly and unequivocally mass murder, and yet we all have no problem whatsoever hushing it up.

Jesus, is that ever moronic. Even your Holy Bible says there is no soul before "quickening". It's always the Fundie whack-jobs that fuck up civilization, and it's always because they reinterpret their own religions.

You simply do not give the CIA, Mossad, and other intelligence agency their just due. They are more competent then you give them credit for.

Come on, Fred, given the facts and exposes from insiders on the table, do you really believe that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone “crazy” who killed JKF for, I guess, no reason at all. If the CIA can pull off the JFK assassination (with a little help from its friends in government and the media), they can pull off anything. Most other “conspiracy theories” are small change in comparison.

As someone taking a new look at “conspiracy theories”, please take a look at Ron Unz latest articles. Like Ron, if you finally realize you’ve been taken once by the media and the government, it warrants taking a relook at other instances where the media and government have dismissed alternative versions of events as so-called “conspiracy theories.”

Yesterday’s “conspiracy theories” are often tomorrow’s official history when the truth is known.

Mr. Reed, it’s grand to read your having loads of fun shooting conspiracy theorist lunacies like fish in a barrel.

The most hilarious – and potentially frightful – thing about run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorists is that when they hold up their purported “evidence,” it’s always a instance of “There’s no there there.”

thing about run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorists is that when they hold up their purported “evidence,” it’s always a instance of “There’s no there there.”

This is really a fascinating example of what psychologists call "projection". It is exactly 180º away from reality. If you ask a defender of the official story for the evidence, what you get is invariably something laughable. And, as you say, there is no "there" there.

Not so long ago, I asked such a person, one "Boris", for the best available evidence for the 9/11 narrative. He told me that Mohammed Atta had a plane ticket. I had asked for the "best available evidence" mind you and that was what he came up with: Atta had a plane ticket!

He had a plane ticket dammit! So, of course, he hijacked a plane and flew it into a building! What more proof do you crazy conspiracy theorists need?

Well, at least he tried. I had asked the "Wizard of Oz" the same question, what is the best available evidence for the official story, and he told me that the proof of the government story was that it was the government story.

That is the most typical response to the question. That, and simply refusing to answer the question!

Well, maybe you can do better. What, in your opinion, is the strongest available evidence for the government story on 9/11, in particular that the operation was orchestrated by a bearded religious fanatic operating out of Afghanistan?

Well, I don’t really know anything about secret Moon bases or FEMA concentration camps, but it’s pretty clear that poor Fred himself is a leading promoter of one of the worst “crazy conspiracy theories,” namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate…

"endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate…"

Define "reputable media outlet." The only media outlets I've seen that tried to debunk the assertion have been anything but reputable. The facts outlined in "The Color of Crime" come from the actual crime statistics and aren't a figment of someone's imagination. Black crime rates are excessively high and are completely out of proportion to their population size. The crime statistics speak for themselves and are denied only by those who have a vested interest in denying them, or the terminally naïve.

namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate…

Are you being tongue-in-cheek? I don't know where "unusual" starts, but the FBI crime table show a murder rate 3.67X a rate imputable to their percentage of population, and a 7.1X rate for violent crime in general. I'm sure you know your way to the tables, but, if necessary, I can provide the links.

I understand the need for having writers with opposing points of view so as not to have your site be an echo-chamber. But this Fred guy is such an obvious troll who so absolutely doesn't believe his own words that it's an insult to readers. Any chance you can get a writer who's a real believer that all conspiracies are false, so that an honest dialogue can be had?

If we're to be kept in front of our computers releasing our pressure valves of discontent instead of in the streets actually trying to do something about changing things, can we at least get some honest dialogue from a writer that actually believes the things they're writing? ;)

Of course conspiracy theories are all fake. Like the one where a bunch of colonists got together and figured out a way to stop paying taxes to their King. Or that some group of Southerners got together to try to secede from the country that seceded from the realm of its lawful King. Or how about that silly conspiracy that started the Spanish-American War, no one got together with a bunch of reporters to drum up support for an unnecessary war. And as we know, no Russians calling themselves Bolsheviks ever met in secret to plan on overthrowing the Czar. There was never a group of Nationalists in Germany who secretly met and conspired to overthrow the German government in the 1920′s and 30′s. Of course the US never secretly gathered a group of scientists to build a bomb that would help end the 2nd World War, and no reporters ever conspired to hide the fact that Roosevelt had polio. We all know that in 1963 a lone gunmen fired a magic bullet, a shot no one has ever been able to replicate, alone, with no help, then was mysteriously shot dead while being held by dozens of law enforcement personnel. We know that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was real and that the USS Liberty incident never took place.
Fred’s probably been visited by the NSA and paid to downplay the chances of any conspiracy ever having taken place. I’m sure any day now the US Supreme Court will come down with a ruling declaring RICO laws unconstitutional because no one ever has, or ever will, conspire with another group of individuals to do anything, legal, or illegal. In fact, I think the word “conspiracy” will soon be declared badspeak, and eliminated from the dictionary.

Don't forget good old Operation Northwoods:
"Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities."
"The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro."
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=92662

Fred, Your writing consists mainly of ad hominem attacks, name calling, and straw man arguments. There are billions of humans with their own opinions. Some have merit, some don’t. Your modus operandi seeems to be to identify an extreme position on some controversial topic and then use that to discredit one entire side of the debate.

So because you can knock down a straw man, everyone who disagrees with your views based on your surprisingly deep trust of the government is having paranoid delusions. You apparently feel no need to address the issues in any depth. That is why I say your writing is lazy and your name calling is unjustifed based on anything you have written.

What is worse, is that it is apparent that you know that you are being lazy and unjust in your broad criticisms, and you don’t care. Maybe you are laughing to yourself that it only matters that you “sell” copy. Why should you care if thoughful people are beginning to see you as pompous and buffoonish and inellectually lazy as long as they read your columns?

What is worse, is that it is apparent that you know that you are being lazy and unjust in your broad criticisms, and you don’t care. Maybe you are laughing to yourself that it only matters that you “sell” copy.

I agree with you 100%, Scalpel. The man has obviously turned into nothing but a Provocateur Troll that knows he's being an idiot but is willing to do it in the hopes of staying relevant. I hope that nobody continues to fall for this baiting from this washed-up writer after reading this latest garbage he has put out.

He's a sad man trying to revive a washed up career by trolling his readers. He should be ignored as such.

I thought Fred’s 9/11 article was a joke. I thought he was demonstrating how patently wrong the official account’s falsehoods are. I thought he was doing an impression of an idiot sheep-person. I’m sorry to learn he was apparently just being an idiot sheep-person.

Regarding space aliens, this old thought experiment is delightful: either we are absolutely unique beings in the universe, or we are not at all, and either one of those is pretty unbelievable.

All I can say is that for well over a year, I’ve been watching these things off my back porch, and just for kicks I just made sure they’re still there, and they are:

I’m sorry to learn he was apparently just being an idiot sheep-person.

that's the whole question

is it possible that Fred really is *that* fucking stupid

or

is he trying to run cover for the singularly heinous criminals who perpetrated that unprecedentedly monstrous crime on that day?

what we're all left scratching our heads wondering is...

is Fred a (deluded) imbecile?

or a (complicit) monster?

I find myself praying quietly that the booze and age are all taking its toll, and that our Fred is simply flailing around in his doddering atrophy, trying to cling to a psychological port in the reality storm, only to discover (like the rest of us have) that the mighty timber of solace [they would never do that] he has gripped to stay himself, it but just more flotsam of the wreckage of our post-9/11 world.

in fairness, it is *very* unsettling to come to grips with the reality that these people actually did do such a thing. People like Dick Cheney who has grown so financially fat off the largess and trust of the American people.

I think of an audio clip of a women that was calling from inside the tower after it had been hit, and talking about how unbearably hot it was and was she going to die. (she did)

and I think of Larry Silverstein and how he would dine at the restaurant at the top of his WTC every morning, and how he must have known all of those waitresses and hostesses and managers and all the people he spoke to every day

and then how they told all the people in the second tower after the first plane hit, to return to their offices and cubicals because there was no danger. They even had guards preventing them from leaving.

and I try to wrap my brain around such people, and I admit that it is very difficult

My favorite screwball fantasy is that ancient aliens built all the pyramids, using anti-gravitational devices. Yes but . . . why did they only build pyramids? A three year old boy in a sandbox with some blocks will build a pyramid. That’s because it’s so easy. These aliens could star navigate to earth, infuse ape DNA with their own to produce us, throw blocks of stone about like potato chips, yet they couldn’t build two-story buildings? Hmmmm, have to think about that one.

Either Ron Unz is conspiring with Fred Reed to energize readers, or Fred has been kidnapped and sedated and a CIA contractor has stolen his identity in deep Mexico. Surely Mr. Reed knows that Carl Sagan and almost all other space scientists think intelligent life exists outside earth. I agree that aliens not only visited earth, but may still be here! The SR-71 for example, as well as no nuclear wars since 1945.

The proof of this hoax is his statement: “that the government hid the existence of large number of POWs left behind in Vietnam.”

Mr. Reed must know that the owner of this blog is a strong believer in this “conspiracy.” So Mr. Reed is just jerking us around for fun, or has lost his mind due to Padre Kino abuse, or was removed in Mexico and replace by a NY Times “reporter.”

Anything may "be" "here".
Our threedimensional, spatiotemporal world is a construction of our mind. There may be anything beyond the most daring phantasy's reach right here beside us, only in dimensions we don't perceive.

Doubting that possibility corresponds to believe our species a species of Gods.

Well, I don't really know anything about secret Moon bases or FEMA concentration camps, but it's pretty clear that poor Fred himself is a leading promoter of one of the worst "crazy conspiracy theories," namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate...

http://www.unz.com/article/race-and-crime-in-america/

I’m surprised he put nam pows in his essay. Pretty good evidence some were held back for bargaining reparations.

Well, I don't really know anything about secret Moon bases or FEMA concentration camps, but it's pretty clear that poor Fred himself is a leading promoter of one of the worst "crazy conspiracy theories," namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate...

http://www.unz.com/article/race-and-crime-in-america/

You should have been reading Fred when he was at Washington Times many moons back. His early reportage was the warning sign of what was to come. He was there when the whole thing started.

Mr. Reed, it's grand to read your having loads of fun shooting conspiracy theorist lunacies like fish in a barrel.

The most hilarious - and potentially frightful - thing about run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorists is that when they hold up their purported "evidence," it's always a instance of "There's no there there."

thing about run-of-the-mill conspiracy theorists is that when they hold up their purported “evidence,” it’s always a instance of “There’s no there there.”

This is really a fascinating example of what psychologists call “projection”. It is exactly 180º away from reality. If you ask a defender of the official story for the evidence, what you get is invariably something laughable. And, as you say, there is no “there” there.

Not so long ago, I asked such a person, one “Boris”, for the best available evidence for the 9/11 narrative. He told me that Mohammed Atta had a plane ticket. I had asked for the “best available evidence” mind you and that was what he came up with: Atta had a plane ticket!

He had a plane ticket dammit! So, of course, he hijacked a plane and flew it into a building! What more proof do you crazy conspiracy theorists need?

Well, at least he tried. I had asked the “Wizard of Oz” the same question, what is the best available evidence for the official story, and he told me that the proof of the government story was that it was the government story.

That is the most typical response to the question. That, and simply refusing to answer the question!

Well, maybe you can do better. What, in your opinion, is the strongest available evidence for the government story on 9/11, in particular that the operation was orchestrated by a bearded religious fanatic operating out of Afghanistan?

Mr. Reed, of all people, should know that conspiracies exist. He rode along with cops for quite awhile and is bound to know of instances where the cops did something “not by the book” and are keeping their mouths shut about it to this day. And him too.

More current is the lawless violence where hundreds of blacks show up at the same place at the same time and beat or kill a white person, then exuberantly “shop” at a handy store. The media, cops and blacks all call this a “peaceful” protest of legitimate grievances and we’re supposed to take that as gospel. And the cops seem unable to find the instigators or perpetrators. Either they’re not trying or there is a conspiracy of silence among the participants.

How about mass corporate layoffs? Ever been on the wrong end of one of those? Many people know about them ahead of time because all the paperwork is ready to go. Very few people ever have someone break silence and forewarn them they’re on the list to be let go.

Taking these smaller instances of successful conspiracies, it’s only a hop to upsize them for 9/11. And anybody with smarts and reasoning ability knows our government keeps untold numbers of things hid from us. Things we pay them to do, things our constitution never meant them to do and certainly never meant them to keep secret.

Well, I don't really know anything about secret Moon bases or FEMA concentration camps, but it's pretty clear that poor Fred himself is a leading promoter of one of the worst "crazy conspiracy theories," namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate...

http://www.unz.com/article/race-and-crime-in-america/

“endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate…”

Define “reputable media outlet.” The only media outlets I’ve seen that tried to debunk the assertion have been anything but reputable. The facts outlined in “The Color of Crime” come from the actual crime statistics and aren’t a figment of someone’s imagination. Black crime rates are excessively high and are completely out of proportion to their population size. The crime statistics speak for themselves and are denied only by those who have a vested interest in denying them, or the terminally naïve.

Abortion is clearly and unequivocally mass murder, and yet we all have no problem whatsoever hushing it up.

Abortion is clearly and unequivocally mass murder, and yet we all have no problem whatsoever hushing it up.

Jesus, is that ever moronic. Even your Holy Bible says there is no soul before “quickening”. It’s always the Fundie whack-jobs that fuck up civilization, and it’s always because they reinterpret their own religions.

Really? You're using the "Bible" for a scientific argument? Genetic research has proven that the foetus is a complete human being at conception. This is plain fact, not arguable. The argument about whether a mother should have the option of aborting her child is separate from the scientifically proven biological fact of human existence at conception. Now, you can make a reasonable argument that abortion should be legal, I tend to side with those who argue to keep it legal, but using the "Bible" for the argument is ridiculous.

I have stated my opinions on 911 here before, the upshot is that the evidence doesn’t match the government’s story. A new forensic investigation is warranted. As far as the scorn and ridicule goes it should actually be going the other way. A physicist or engineer who can’t see something wrong with the way WTC Building 7 came down, ought to return his/her diploma.

About UFOs. I first heard them taken seriously by my old electronics teacher back in high school. He was a veteran of the Korean War and one day after cleaning up the lab and waiting for the bell to ring, he told us the story of when he and some of his friends watched a UFO come onto their radar screens at about 6000 to 7000 mph, stop dead, remain stationary for a while, then go back out the same way it came in at about 6000 to 7000 mph.

Military radar is a scientific instrument. People’s lives depend on it. So that counts as scientific evidence, maybe not iron-clad proof, but definitely evidence. Others have had similar experiences. Eventually the term “Fast Walker” was coined to describe these “incidents.”

Notice, that this doesn’t involve someone being abducted or seeing the UFO directly. Jets have been scrambled to chase these bogies. Both radar and visual contact have been made, and so forth. My electronics teacher was one of those crew-cut, Joe Friday types, very fact oriented. You don’t see them much any more, but this documentary can give you a glimpse of what things were like in those days.

Whatever UFOs turn out to be, it is pretty obvious that the government is lying to us . . . again.

Either Ron Unz is conspiring with Fred Reed to energize readers, or Fred has been kidnapped and sedated and a CIA contractor has stolen his identity in deep Mexico. Surely Mr. Reed knows that Carl Sagan and almost all other space scientists think intelligent life exists outside earth. I agree that aliens not only visited earth, but may still be here! The SR-71 for example, as well as no nuclear wars since 1945.

The proof of this hoax is his statement: "that the government hid the existence of large number of POWs left behind in Vietnam."

Mr. Reed must know that the owner of this blog is a strong believer in this "conspiracy." So Mr. Reed is just jerking us around for fun, or has lost his mind due to Padre Kino abuse, or was removed in Mexico and replace by a NY Times "reporter."

Surely Mr. Reed knows that Carl Sagan and almost all other space scientists think intelligent life exists outside earth. I agree that aliens not only visited earth, but may still be here!

Well, I don't really know anything about secret Moon bases or FEMA concentration camps, but it's pretty clear that poor Fred himself is a leading promoter of one of the worst "crazy conspiracy theories," namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate...

http://www.unz.com/article/race-and-crime-in-america/

namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate…

Are you being tongue-in-cheek? I don’t know where “unusual” starts, but the FBI crime table show a murder rate 3.67X a rate imputable to their percentage of population, and a 7.1X rate for violent crime in general. I’m sure you know your way to the tables, but, if necessary, I can provide the links.

I’m mostly a conspiracy factualist…although, I do engage in conspiracy theory when I’m trying to understand what the whole story behind the ‘event’ is. Normal people, and especially men, do this all the time…investigative reporters, police detectives, insurance investigators, etc., all engage in conspiracy theory, from time to time, as a necessary part of their jobs.

I’ve come to the conclusion that some people are incapable of “connecting the dots”, they have no ability to see the bigger picture. You can show them the factual evidence for this or that, and explain the connection between this person and the other, but they just can’t put 2 and 2 together. So, aside from the fact that your counterargument might be presuasive to curious onlookers, what’s the point of arguing with them?

Fredric Reed is just another blogger seeking attention…he’s a good writer, and he tries to entertain the reader, but ultimately his writing has little, or no value at all. My time is too valuable to be squandered on this frivolous crap. I will ignore Fred’s articles from here on out.

Because of Ron Unz’s work and what I’ve seen in this election (esp. the bogus issues used against Trump), I’ve started to seriously question the official narrative on everything now. What amazes me is the superb acting I see by media figures while they are promoting false narratives which they have to know are bogus. Or are they are just blinded by political ideology (belief) that they then truly see what they believe and seek to promote this by any means necessary. Does this not qualify as conspiracy? Or does there have to be a requisite level of awareness of intent to deceive by the purveyors of the conspiracy to be considered conspiracy? Or a certain unbelief on the the purveyor’s part in the the truth of the conspiracy in conjunction with a certain level of intention to deceive? I don’t know, but thanks to Unz I am started to question not only the major news narrative but official historical narratives.

For example, one version of the attack on the Pentagon holds that a missile (type unspecified) was fired by a Navy ship (ship unspecified). This means that the entire crew, several hundred ordinary sailors–not CIA operatives or Thirty-Third Degree Masons–as well as higher-ups would quickly know that they had just blown up the Pentagon. Yet it never leaked out.

you’re forgetting a few Fred

there are some nutjobs out there that actually believe out own fecal government lied about! the justification for going to war with Vietnam!

I know, can you imagine? These tiresome shitballs then try to go on with how the generals all lied about the conduct of the war and didn’t want a decisive victory but wanted to just keep the money slop flowing in the trough to all the little war piggies. Can you imagine? I know, what ingrates! Talking about how some POW were left behind. I want to push their wheelchair down a steep road when ever I hear them say such things about our own government and military. When I hear these whinny vets blubbering about these so called lies that our own government supposedly told, they don’t deserve the bennies they’re lining up for. Huh Fred? Slam that veterans hospital door in their faces! Conspiracy whackos.

Then there are those crazies that say that when the USS Vincennes shot flight 655 out of the sky over Iran, that it could not have mistook an Iranian Airbus A300 jumbo jet for a comparatively tiny F-14 Tomcat fighter jet. Lunatics! Traitors! That would mean that our Navy deliberately targeted and shot out of the sky a commercial passenger jet and murdered all 290 people on board. That’s an act of war Fred, and it would require all sailors and commanders all the way up the chain of command to lie about it. Makes you want to slap every one of those crybaby Iranians with a some of those chemical weapons we gave to Saddam to use on Iran, huh? ‘Oh, Oh, you killed my wife and daughter!’. STFU crybaby. If the US government did it, then they had it coming, and they know it and you know it! Tell em Fred!

Idiots!

‘Israel attacked the USS Liberty!’ Some of these sleestacks shout. Our best ally in the world that we send billions and billions of dollars of lucre to each year, who America has treated with so much kindness and generosity as to be unprecedented, and these imbeciles sit there and try to say that Israel (who we all love and who loves us!) would attack our navy vessel and then, these boneheads pretend that our very own president!! ordered jets that were scrambled to assist the Liberty… to return, and offer no assistance. Twice!

no one on this earth cares more about the American people than the American president Fred. No one is more trusted and given more power in order to protect the lives of Americans, and especially the ones he personally sends into harms way. Now what are the chances that such a man would use the authority trusted to him, to order our Navy to abandon our sailors to the murderous and cowardly treachery of an ally turned enemy? It borders on criminally insane!

what are you to do with people like this Fred?! I mean come on! Right?

sometimes I think I’ve heard it all. ‘Osama wasn’t killed by SEAL team six, and his body secretly buried at sea’. Don’t these lizard people know that the whole crew would have to be in on it?!

next we’ll hear about building seven was an alien illusion too. 3000 Americans died on that day, and there are people so deluded and worried about their bodily fluids that they’re saying it was all part of a scheme to get the US to fight endless wars in the middle east. Do you see us fighting these endless wars Fred? Exactly! What are you to do with these people?

Golf on Tonkin, Sinking of the Maine, Belgian babies on bayonets, Kuwaiti incubators, and now these basement dweller want us to believe that 911 was a false flag too! What next, Syrian chemical weapon attacks? Machine gun bullet holes in MH17?

when I hear people say that our own government, the men and women who are extremely well paid, but more to the point, trusted to keep us all safe, would be the same people who would cynically plot to harm us for sinister reasons of their own, I wish there were FEMA camps Fred. What else are you to do with such people?

The other day some whack job was telling me that there was no human soap at Auschwitz, and that the “human” skin lampshade was actually a goat skin, and that the Nazis didn’t shrink people’s heads. I punched him in the face. What else was I to do? I saw the shrunken head Fred. It’s right there on the newsreel, so I didn’t need that Nazi apologist (who clearly wants a Holocaust to happen) telling me there were no shrunken heads. I saw the dammed thing!

If someone says ‘building seven’, just tell him that sleestacks did it. Mock him and all those people who act like there are aliens going to the moon. Ask him if he’s been abducted lately. Ridicule is what these people deserve. I wish I was as good as you are at it, I’d really have some fun.

A quiet though intense fear of having one’s SS checks cancelled by government often develops among older folks particularly when it is their only source of income. This symptom often is accompanied with mean spiritedness towards others, in particular towards former “comrades in arms”. Psychological mechanism is obvious. Most pitiful cases are among the expats whose liberty and self professed independence from America is built on one monthly check form the US government.

A quiet though intense fear of having one’s SS checks cancelled by government often develops among older folks particularly when it is their only source of income. This symptom often is accompanied with mean spiritedness towards others, in particular towards former “comrades in arms”.

Wait, let me get this straight: people who worked all their livcs, paid taxes and behaved responsibly, when faced with a corrupt government that holds over their heads a threat of denial of that promised stipend so arduously-earned ... those people, in the infirmity and weakness of old age, should storm the Bastille, overthrow the oppressors, and fix-up everything so that a pack of worthless welfare bums, shiftless Millenials, and millions of illegal aliens should have the sweet life of leisure they so clearly deserve?

A quiet though intense fear of having one's SS checks cancelled by government often develops among older folks particularly when it is their only source of income. This symptom often is accompanied with mean spiritedness towards others, in particular towards former "comrades in arms". Psychological mechanism is obvious. Most pitiful cases are among the expats whose liberty and self professed independence from America is built on one monthly check form the US government.

A quiet though intense fear of having one’s SS checks cancelled by government often develops among older folks particularly when it is their only source of income. This symptom often is accompanied with mean spiritedness towards others, in particular towards former “comrades in arms”.

Wait, let me get this straight: people who worked all their livcs, paid taxes and behaved responsibly, when faced with a corrupt government that holds over their heads a threat of denial of that promised stipend so arduously-earned … those people, in the infirmity and weakness of old age, should storm the Bastille, overthrow the oppressors, and fix-up everything so that a pack of worthless welfare bums, shiftless Millenials, and millions of illegal aliens should have the sweet life of leisure they so clearly deserve?

Definitely irony deficient. You should get yourself tested for Asperger's, too. Not that I ever got tested, I'm self-diagnosed. But your level of self-unawareness is staggering. Or is it just a lack of reading comprehension skills?

Gotta admit to being baffled on this one- what exactly is Fred trying to accomplish here ?
I have been ( and hope to remain ) a very appreciative admirer of Fred’s razor sharp intelligence, rigorous logic, refusal to be pigeonholed by the group-think of any opinion segment, candor, and integrity.
So OK, so just what the hell is going on here ?
It’s not so much the specifics that bother me ( who, after all, can honestly claim to having the ” whole story” on any of this stuff ? ) , but rather the sloppy and lazy caricaturing of skeptics so obviously prior to any serious attempt to investigate what the skeptics themselves, as opposed to MSM guardians of the Official Versions, present.
Shame on ya for this one, Amigo !

but rather the sloppy and lazy caricaturing of skeptics so obviously prior to any serious attempt to investigate what the skeptics themselves, as opposed to MSM guardians of the Official Versions,

Fred, imo, is tweaking the noses of the plethora of fringist whackies who abound in these environs.

As for you, is age affecting your analytics? The caricature Fred presents is by no means "sloppy and lazy". If it were, the irate bellows of the wounded bison would not be ringing in our ears. The caricature is hitting hard, and is spot-on. Nothing makes the buffalo moan like stinging. accurate ridicule.

I thought Fred's 9/11 article was a joke. I thought he was demonstrating how patently wrong the official account's falsehoods are. I thought he was doing an impression of an idiot sheep-person. I'm sorry to learn he was apparently just being an idiot sheep-person.

Regarding space aliens, this old thought experiment is delightful: either we are absolutely unique beings in the universe, or we are not at all, and either one of those is pretty unbelievable.

All I can say is that for well over a year, I've been watching these things off my back porch, and just for kicks I just made sure they're still there, and they are:

http://www.rense.com/general47/thund.htm

I’m sorry to learn he was apparently just being an idiot sheep-person.

that’s the whole question

is it possible that Fred really is *that* fucking stupid

or

is he trying to run cover for the singularly heinous criminals who perpetrated that unprecedentedly monstrous crime on that day?

what we’re all left scratching our heads wondering is…

is Fred a (deluded) imbecile?

or a (complicit) monster?

I find myself praying quietly that the booze and age are all taking its toll, and that our Fred is simply flailing around in his doddering atrophy, trying to cling to a psychological port in the reality storm, only to discover (like the rest of us have) that the mighty timber of solace [they would never do that] he has gripped to stay himself, it but just more flotsam of the wreckage of our post-9/11 world.

in fairness, it is*very* unsettling to come to grips with the reality that these people actually did do such a thing. People like Dick Cheney who has grown so financially fat off the largess and trust of the American people.

I think of an audio clip of a women that was calling from inside the tower after it had been hit, and talking about how unbearably hot it was and was she going to die. (she did)

and I think of Larry Silverstein and how he would dine at the restaurant at the top of his WTC every morning, and how he must have known all of those waitresses and hostesses and managers and all the people he spoke to every day
and then how they told all the people in the second tower after the first plane hit, to return to their offices and cubicals because there was no danger. They even had guards preventing them from leaving.

and I try to wrap my brain around such people, and I admit that it is very difficult

Either Ron Unz is conspiring with Fred Reed to energize readers, or Fred has been kidnapped and sedated and a CIA contractor has stolen his identity in deep Mexico. Surely Mr. Reed knows that Carl Sagan and almost all other space scientists think intelligent life exists outside earth. I agree that aliens not only visited earth, but may still be here! The SR-71 for example, as well as no nuclear wars since 1945.

The proof of this hoax is his statement: "that the government hid the existence of large number of POWs left behind in Vietnam."

Mr. Reed must know that the owner of this blog is a strong believer in this "conspiracy." So Mr. Reed is just jerking us around for fun, or has lost his mind due to Padre Kino abuse, or was removed in Mexico and replace by a NY Times "reporter."

Surely Mr. Reed knows that Carl Sagan and almost all other space scientists think intelligent life exists outside earth.

Gotta admit to being baffled on this one- what exactly is Fred trying to accomplish here ?
I have been ( and hope to remain ) a very appreciative admirer of Fred's razor sharp intelligence, rigorous logic, refusal to be pigeonholed by the group-think of any opinion segment, candor, and integrity.
So OK, so just what the hell is going on here ?
It's not so much the specifics that bother me ( who, after all, can honestly claim to having the " whole story" on any of this stuff ? ) , but rather the sloppy and lazy caricaturing of skeptics so obviously prior to any serious attempt to investigate what the skeptics themselves, as opposed to MSM guardians of the Official Versions, present.
Shame on ya for this one, Amigo !

but rather the sloppy and lazy caricaturing of skeptics so obviously prior to any serious attempt to investigate what the skeptics themselves, as opposed to MSM guardians of the Official Versions,

Fred, imo, is tweaking the noses of the plethora of fringist whackies who abound in these environs.

As for you, is age affecting your analytics? The caricature Fred presents is by no means “sloppy and lazy”. If it were, the irate bellows of the wounded bison would not be ringing in our ears. The caricature is hitting hard, and is spot-on. Nothing makes the buffalo moan like stinging. accurate ridicule.

"is age affecting your analytics " ?
Quite possibly so. Back at the end of the last Ice Age when I was an impressionable college student, I was taught to thoroughly examine the other fellow's evidence ( his own evidence, not what others
said/wrote/selectively chose to present about him ) before attempting to refute his point of view.
It's one of those habits formed in youth that has persisted.
That and the enduring belief that ad hominem attack is a cardinal sign of weak argument.

namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate…

Are you being tongue-in-cheek? I don't know where "unusual" starts, but the FBI crime table show a murder rate 3.67X a rate imputable to their percentage of population, and a 7.1X rate for violent crime in general. I'm sure you know your way to the tables, but, if necessary, I can provide the links.

If Mr. Unz’s tongue were any more firmly implanted in his cheek, molars would be dislodged.

but rather the sloppy and lazy caricaturing of skeptics so obviously prior to any serious attempt to investigate what the skeptics themselves, as opposed to MSM guardians of the Official Versions,

Fred, imo, is tweaking the noses of the plethora of fringist whackies who abound in these environs.

As for you, is age affecting your analytics? The caricature Fred presents is by no means "sloppy and lazy". If it were, the irate bellows of the wounded bison would not be ringing in our ears. The caricature is hitting hard, and is spot-on. Nothing makes the buffalo moan like stinging. accurate ridicule.

“is age affecting your analytics ” ?
Quite possibly so. Back at the end of the last Ice Age when I was an impressionable college student, I was taught to thoroughly examine the other fellow’s evidence ( his own evidence, not what others
said/wrote/selectively chose to present about him ) before attempting to refute his point of view.
It’s one of those habits formed in youth that has persisted.
That and the enduring belief that ad hominem attack is a cardinal sign of weak argument.

When's the last time a conspiracy was exposed, the lies revealed, and the real truth officially committed to the history books? Yeah, it was back when Mattel Shootin' Shells fired REAL BULLETS. I saw it on TV.

all he’s doing is the same old tiresome ploy of equating valid observations by intelligent people who see obvious discrepancies with the official version of 911 – with people who believe in Bigfoot and alien abductions.

For example

one version of the attack on the Pentagon holds that a missile (type unspecified) was fired by a Navy ship

I’ve personally never even heard that one before. It almost seems like Fred is feverishly equating recent discussions about flight 800 with the valid questions about a missing passenger jet that supposedly crashed into the Pentagon, (or disappeared into the ground in Pennsylvania).

It isn’t that Fred’s latest here is so biting and cogent that we’re lamenting what he wrote, but rather that it’s so blandly kosher. So goose-stepping in line with the PTB, and our sadness and disappointment to see a great writer who used to be so outside of the trite, kosher narratives of the day, fall in line and return to the fold.

That’s why we’re writing in to express our forlorn disillusionment- with one who used to be our champion

Of course conspiracy theories are all fake. Like the one where a bunch of colonists got together and figured out a way to stop paying taxes to their King. Or that some group of Southerners got together to try to secede from the country that seceded from the realm of its lawful King. Or how about that silly conspiracy that started the Spanish-American War, no one got together with a bunch of reporters to drum up support for an unnecessary war. And as we know, no Russians calling themselves Bolsheviks ever met in secret to plan on overthrowing the Czar. There was never a group of Nationalists in Germany who secretly met and conspired to overthrow the German government in the 1920's and 30's. Of course the US never secretly gathered a group of scientists to build a bomb that would help end the 2nd World War, and no reporters ever conspired to hide the fact that Roosevelt had polio. We all know that in 1963 a lone gunmen fired a magic bullet, a shot no one has ever been able to replicate, alone, with no help, then was mysteriously shot dead while being held by dozens of law enforcement personnel. We know that the Gulf of Tonkin incident was real and that the USS Liberty incident never took place.
Fred's probably been visited by the NSA and paid to downplay the chances of any conspiracy ever having taken place. I'm sure any day now the US Supreme Court will come down with a ruling declaring RICO laws unconstitutional because no one ever has, or ever will, conspire with another group of individuals to do anything, legal, or illegal. In fact, I think the word "conspiracy" will soon be declared badspeak, and eliminated from the dictionary.

Wow – pretty nice comprehensive list Rich – thanks!

Don’t forget good old Operation Northwoods:
“Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.”
“The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba’s then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.”

I’m sorry to learn he was apparently just being an idiot sheep-person.

that's the whole question

is it possible that Fred really is *that* fucking stupid

or

is he trying to run cover for the singularly heinous criminals who perpetrated that unprecedentedly monstrous crime on that day?

what we're all left scratching our heads wondering is...

is Fred a (deluded) imbecile?

or a (complicit) monster?

I find myself praying quietly that the booze and age are all taking its toll, and that our Fred is simply flailing around in his doddering atrophy, trying to cling to a psychological port in the reality storm, only to discover (like the rest of us have) that the mighty timber of solace [they would never do that] he has gripped to stay himself, it but just more flotsam of the wreckage of our post-9/11 world.

in fairness, it is *very* unsettling to come to grips with the reality that these people actually did do such a thing. People like Dick Cheney who has grown so financially fat off the largess and trust of the American people.

I think of an audio clip of a women that was calling from inside the tower after it had been hit, and talking about how unbearably hot it was and was she going to die. (she did)

and I think of Larry Silverstein and how he would dine at the restaurant at the top of his WTC every morning, and how he must have known all of those waitresses and hostesses and managers and all the people he spoke to every day

and then how they told all the people in the second tower after the first plane hit, to return to their offices and cubicals because there was no danger. They even had guards preventing them from leaving.

and I try to wrap my brain around such people, and I admit that it is very difficult

once you understand who did it and why, you're never the same person.

or a (complicit) monster?

Let’s face it, that’s what the authors of the MSM are, with possible exceptions such as the gardening, football, and chess correspondents.

And Fred, let’s face it, worked for the MSM, so is it reasonable to give him the benefit of the doubt? I don’t think so.

"is age affecting your analytics " ?
Quite possibly so. Back at the end of the last Ice Age when I was an impressionable college student, I was taught to thoroughly examine the other fellow's evidence ( his own evidence, not what others
said/wrote/selectively chose to present about him ) before attempting to refute his point of view.
It's one of those habits formed in youth that has persisted.
That and the enduring belief that ad hominem attack is a cardinal sign of weak argument.

Quite possibly so. Back at the end of the last Ice Age when I was an impressionable college student, I was taught to thoroughly examine the other fellow’s evidence

Ice Age? Hell, I go back to the 3rd Ice Age — yessir, they stopped you and checked your hall pass back then. Possibly, you meant “Mesozoic”?

When’s the last time a conspiracy was exposed, the lies revealed, and the real truth officially committed to the history books? Yeah, it was back when Mattel Shootin’ Shells fired REAL BULLETS. I saw it on TV.

"When’s the last time a conspiracy was exposed, the lies revealed, and the real truth officially committed to the history books? Yeah, it was back when Mattel Shootin’ Shells fired REAL BULLETS. I saw it on TV."

It looks like you subscribe to the nihilist point of view. You may be correct, but still, a different group of people harbor an unrealistic desire to try to know the truth and to try to promote justice. The reality may be perceived the same for both groups, but the latter gets some satisfaction from trying.

all he's doing is the same old tiresome ploy of equating valid observations by intelligent people who see obvious discrepancies with the official version of 911 - with people who believe in Bigfoot and alien abductions.

For example

one version of the attack on the Pentagon holds that a missile (type unspecified) was fired by a Navy ship

I've personally never even heard that one before. It almost seems like Fred is feverishly equating recent discussions about flight 800 with the valid questions about a missing passenger jet that supposedly crashed into the Pentagon, (or disappeared into the ground in Pennsylvania).

It isn't that Fred's latest here is so biting and cogent that we're lamenting what he wrote, but rather that it's so blandly kosher. So goose-stepping in line with the PTB, and our sadness and disappointment to see a great writer who used to be so outside of the trite, kosher narratives of the day, fall in line and return to the fold.

That's why we're writing in to express our forlorn disillusionment- with one who used to be our champion

then the thousands of soldiers killed or maimed fighting the wars based on obvious lies

then the millions of innocent people killed or maimed or displaced in myriad countries

*and all on Israel's behalf, the same country that was behind that cowardly attack*

isn't that quite a coincidence?

then the systematic and treasonous evisceration of our Constitutional rights, as we're all treated like Palestinians at the airports or have federal goons sticking M16s in people's faces like in Boston

then the torture camp, where they don't even allow men to starve themselves to death

(I wonder if the guys shoving tubes up their behinds tell their subjects to 'lighten up' and stop squirming')

then the NDAA, where they codified into law their legal "authority' to black bag any American on any whim without charges or representation or anything, based on the 'authority' of an anonymous government agent for secret reasons of 'national security'. That's a good one eh?

so they've used 911 to turn us all into Palestinians

and then they use the destruction of nation after nation to create a refugee crisis that they use to destroy yet other nations, with the obvious goal of destroying not just every Middle Eastern country they find inconvenient to Israel, but also to destroy every European and Scandinavian country as well.

Isn't that nice?

And all as a consequence of one day of concentrated false flag attacks. Such a deal!

so now when those of us who have been connecting the dots see glaringly who did all of this, and how yes, monstrous it all is, and why (to bolster Israel and destroy all the rest of our countries and hard-won freedoms and way of life)- we always keep running into these shills that tell us to stop worrying about who did it. And just put our heads down and get back in check point line.

I'm not saying their prose lacks flourish, what I'm saying is that we should be demanding to know exactly what happened on that day and who did what. Because what we now know is that we were lied to, and the bastards that did it and lied to us and have used that atrocity to commit an endless series of subsequent atrocities, and that their intentions are very malevolent, and that they ought to be ferreted out, and brought to justice.

Or, they're not going to stop. They're going to keep pushing and destroying and eviscerating our last remaining freedoms until we all find ourselves in a very perilous predicament indeed.

so you see that is why we should take those to task who would try to shill for the regime

men don't stay free who become complacent, and it's a lot easier to protect our (remaining) freedoms (that are under siege) than to get them back once they've been lost

If you have a sense of humor (and I do) you have to admit that Fred’s essay is pretty funny. There are a lot of wacky conspiracy theories out there.
OTOH, Fred’s argument has this logical fallacy: just because many, or even most, conspiracy theories are false, that doesn’t prove they all are. As James Corbett’s excellent Truth video noted, the official story of 9/11 is itself “A Conspiracy Theory.”
To the argument that hundreds of disparate individuals can’t keep a secret, we have the counter-examples of D-Day and the Manhattan Project.
This is, I believe, the Ultimate Conspiracy Theory — that undercover government operatives are promoting the craziest theories to discredit the real ones.

Well, I don't really know anything about secret Moon bases or FEMA concentration camps, but it's pretty clear that poor Fred himself is a leading promoter of one of the worst "crazy conspiracy theories," namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate...

Well, I don't really know anything about secret Moon bases or FEMA concentration camps, but it's pretty clear that poor Fred himself is a leading promoter of one of the worst "crazy conspiracy theories," namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate...

http://www.unz.com/article/race-and-crime-in-america/

poor Fred himself is a leading promoter of one of the worst “crazy conspiracy theories,” namely the absurd claim

He is also a promoter of the idea that mestizos are the 2nd coming of the Ashkenazim, but you knew that, right?

If Fred wrote it in a good faith then Fred is is type of simpleton who can only be against or for. However I want to give him a benefit of doubt so I entertain a possibility that he did not do it in a good faith. One can speculate about his motives. They might be exterior. Coming changes of comment policy at unz.com might be a part of it. Possibly Ron needs to accomplish a clean break from “the crazies” that tarnish his reputation. And Fred is doing the hatched job to move it forward.

I'm mostly a conspiracy factualist...although, I do engage in conspiracy theory when I'm trying to understand what the whole story behind the 'event' is. Normal people, and especially men, do this all the time...investigative reporters, police detectives, insurance investigators, etc., all engage in conspiracy theory, from time to time, as a necessary part of their jobs.

I've come to the conclusion that some people are incapable of "connecting the dots", they have no ability to see the bigger picture. You can show them the factual evidence for this or that, and explain the connection between this person and the other, but they just can't put 2 and 2 together. So, aside from the fact that your counterargument might be presuasive to curious onlookers, what's the point of arguing with them?

Fredric Reed is just another blogger seeking attention...he's a good writer, and he tries to entertain the reader, but ultimately his writing has little, or no value at all. My time is too valuable to be squandered on this frivolous crap. I will ignore Fred's articles from here on out.

Fred, Your writing consists mainly of ad hominem attacks, name calling, and straw man arguments. There are billions of humans with their own opinions. Some have merit, some don't. Your modus operandi seeems to be to identify an extreme position on some controversial topic and then use that to discredit one entire side of the debate.

So because you can knock down a straw man, everyone who disagrees with your views based on your surprisingly deep trust of the government is having paranoid delusions. You apparently feel no need to address the issues in any depth. That is why I say your writing is lazy and your name calling is unjustifed based on anything you have written.

What is worse, is that it is apparent that you know that you are being lazy and unjust in your broad criticisms, and you don't care. Maybe you are laughing to yourself that it only matters that you "sell" copy. Why should you care if thoughful people are beginning to see you as pompous and buffoonish and inellectually lazy as long as they read your columns?

What is worse, is that it is apparent that you know that you are being lazy and unjust in your broad criticisms, and you don’t care. Maybe you are laughing to yourself that it only matters that you “sell” copy.

I agree with you 100%, Scalpel. The man has obviously turned into nothing but a Provocateur Troll that knows he’s being an idiot but is willing to do it in the hopes of staying relevant. I hope that nobody continues to fall for this baiting from this washed-up writer after reading this latest garbage he has put out.

He’s a sad man trying to revive a washed up career by trolling his readers. He should be ignored as such.

Possibly, this home where the buffalo groan can't use a little lightening up? Or not, suit yourself.

use a little lightening up?

well let’s see

there were the 3000 or so killed on that day

then the thousands of soldiers killed or maimed fighting the wars based on obvious lies

then the millions of innocent people killed or maimed or displaced in myriad countries

*and all on Israel’s behalf, the same country that was behind that cowardly attack*

isn’t that quite a coincidence?

then the systematic and treasonous evisceration of our Constitutional rights, as we’re all treated like Palestinians at the airports or have federal goons sticking M16s in people’s faces like in Boston

then the torture camp, where they don’t even allow men to starve themselves to death

(I wonder if the guys shoving tubes up their behinds tell their subjects to ‘lighten up’ and stop squirming’)

then the NDAA, where they codified into law their legal “authority’ to black bag any American on any whim without charges or representation or anything, based on the ‘authority’ of an anonymous government agent for secret reasons of ‘national security’. That’s a good one eh?

so they’ve used 911 to turn us all into Palestinians

and then they use the destruction of nation after nation to create a refugee crisis that they use to destroy yet other nations, with the obvious goal of destroying not just every Middle Eastern country they find inconvenient to Israel, but also to destroy every European and Scandinavian country as well.

Isn’t that nice?

And all as a consequence of one day of concentrated false flag attacks. Such a deal!

so now when those of us who have been connecting the dots see glaringly who did all of this, and how yes, monstrous it all is, and why (to bolster Israel and destroy all the rest of our countries and hard-won freedoms and way of life)- we always keep running into these shills that tell us to stop worrying about who did it. And just put our heads down and get back in check point line.

I’m not saying their prose lacks flourish, what I’m saying is that we should be demanding to know exactly what happened on that day and who did what. Because what we now know is that we were lied to, and the bastards that did it and lied to us and have used that atrocity to commit an endless series of subsequent atrocities, and that their intentions are very malevolent, and that they ought to be ferreted out, and brought to justice.

Or, they’re not going to stop. They’re going to keep pushing and destroying and eviscerating our last remaining freedoms until we all find ourselves in a very perilous predicament indeed.

so you see that is why we should take those to task who would try to shill for the regime

men don’t stay free who become complacent, and it’s a lot easier to protect our (remaining) freedoms (that are under siege) than to get them back once they’ve been lost

men don’t stay free who become complacent, and it’s a lot easier to protect our (remaining) freedoms (that are under siege) than to get them back once they’ve been lost

A quite voluminous reply on your part. It seems obvious that you and Reed do not agree. However, it is the commenters here who are being angry and abusive; Reed was not. Me, I don't know if there was a conspiracy or not, but I sure don't get as bent out of shape about it as the rest of this group. Ain't no future in it.

And there he goes again! Being stupid. Being a moron. That’s our Fred!

The photo of Freddy with a blow up sex doll? This is what they call: a picture is worth a 1,000 words.

Fred has disentegrated into the status of his latest girlfriend (as seen in the photo). He is a blow-up doll with no mind, no feeling, no nothing, simply a batch of hot (or rather lukewarm) air.

The lapses in logic are so frequent and so foolish that it is hard to respond. This is a common tactic: throw dozens of non-facts and false logic nonsense into an essay and then pretend you have made some point.

As other commentors here have pointed out, some of Fred’s conspiracy theory reporting is correct: nothing has been really verified about a fake moon landing, for example.

But many other “theories” have been successfully challenged and refuted by every entity from the US Senate to thousands of structural engineers and other experts in the laws of gravity and physics.

For Fred to just poo poo these people is the height of arrogance and ignorance.

Fred? Why don’t you take your new lover down under and in the bowels of your new yacht so that you can commune with a blow-up doll, because you are obviously unable to relate to a thinking human being.

You have derroagated your own brand, you fool. Why would you do that? Do you really think that the millions of people who believe, rightly, that the facts on the ground speak for themselves and only a moron or symp would dispute that, are going to support you and read you?

You are reducing yourself to irrelevance.

And that is the true meaning of your photo. You are more into blowup dolls than you are into reality, Fred.

Go home, go down below. Relate to your new woman: a plastic nothing. Like you have just become in everyone’s eyes.

Well, I don't really know anything about secret Moon bases or FEMA concentration camps, but it's pretty clear that poor Fred himself is a leading promoter of one of the worst "crazy conspiracy theories," namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate...

http://www.unz.com/article/race-and-crime-in-america/

Mr. Unz,

I understand the need for having writers with opposing points of view so as not to have your site be an echo-chamber. But this Fred guy is such an obvious troll who so absolutely doesn’t believe his own words that it’s an insult to readers. Any chance you can get a writer who’s a real believer that all conspiracies are false, so that an honest dialogue can be had?

If we’re to be kept in front of our computers releasing our pressure valves of discontent instead of in the streets actually trying to do something about changing things, can we at least get some honest dialogue from a writer that actually believes the things they’re writing?

Abortion is clearly and unequivocally mass murder, and yet we all have no problem whatsoever hushing it up.

Jesus, is that ever moronic. Even your Holy Bible says there is no soul before "quickening". It's always the Fundie whack-jobs that fuck up civilization, and it's always because they reinterpret their own religions.

We are, indeed, doomed. By a conspiracy of dumbasses.

Really? You’re using the “Bible” for a scientific argument? Genetic research has proven that the foetus is a complete human being at conception. This is plain fact, not arguable. The argument about whether a mother should have the option of aborting her child is separate from the scientifically proven biological fact of human existence at conception. Now, you can make a reasonable argument that abortion should be legal, I tend to side with those who argue to keep it legal, but using the “Bible” for the argument is ridiculous.

that the government hid the existence of large number of POWs left behind in Vietnam

The fact that this man is willing to go so LOW as to say this trash that he writes about POW’s being left behind being a “theory”, shows just what an absolute POS he truly is. It is an EXTREME insult to the POW/MIA’s, their freind’s, their family’s, and loved ones of those left behind and goes beyond all decency. He has absolutely no shame.

An absolutely disgusting outrage, as he intended for attention. All for clicks on his article.

Really? You're using the "Bible" for a scientific argument? Genetic research has proven that the foetus is a complete human being at conception. This is plain fact, not arguable. The argument about whether a mother should have the option of aborting her child is separate from the scientifically proven biological fact of human existence at conception. Now, you can make a reasonable argument that abortion should be legal, I tend to side with those who argue to keep it legal, but using the "Bible" for the argument is ridiculous.

Really? You’re using the “Bible” for a scientific argument?

Nope. Just observing what the Bible says. All anti-abortion arguments are religion-based.

Genetic research has proven that the foetus is a complete human being at conception.

Nope, genetic research has proven no such thing.

using the “Bible” for the argument is ridiculous.

But, that’s what the Bible says. Why would I use a scientific argument when addressing religion-based proscriptions?

Your comment about the "Bible" and "quickening", seemed a little ridiculous to me. Should we argue the age of the earth by counting down from Adam? Map the universe using biblical references? Some might find the "Bible" an interesting historical document, but I don't believe it should appear in the same sentence as science.
It's sometimes difficult to argue real science with those unskilled in science, but you must be unfamiliar with the strides made in genetic research over the past 30 or so years, proving that genetically, the foetus is a human being. If you want to argue what a "human" is, or what "personhood" is, that's rhetoric, and not my line. I'm not trying to get into the pro-life vs pro-abortion argument, I'm just pointing out that at conception, the human zygote contains 46 chromosomes, all human, genetically, that makes it a human. Legally, believe what you want.

then the thousands of soldiers killed or maimed fighting the wars based on obvious lies

then the millions of innocent people killed or maimed or displaced in myriad countries

*and all on Israel's behalf, the same country that was behind that cowardly attack*

isn't that quite a coincidence?

then the systematic and treasonous evisceration of our Constitutional rights, as we're all treated like Palestinians at the airports or have federal goons sticking M16s in people's faces like in Boston

then the torture camp, where they don't even allow men to starve themselves to death

(I wonder if the guys shoving tubes up their behinds tell their subjects to 'lighten up' and stop squirming')

then the NDAA, where they codified into law their legal "authority' to black bag any American on any whim without charges or representation or anything, based on the 'authority' of an anonymous government agent for secret reasons of 'national security'. That's a good one eh?

so they've used 911 to turn us all into Palestinians

and then they use the destruction of nation after nation to create a refugee crisis that they use to destroy yet other nations, with the obvious goal of destroying not just every Middle Eastern country they find inconvenient to Israel, but also to destroy every European and Scandinavian country as well.

Isn't that nice?

And all as a consequence of one day of concentrated false flag attacks. Such a deal!

so now when those of us who have been connecting the dots see glaringly who did all of this, and how yes, monstrous it all is, and why (to bolster Israel and destroy all the rest of our countries and hard-won freedoms and way of life)- we always keep running into these shills that tell us to stop worrying about who did it. And just put our heads down and get back in check point line.

I'm not saying their prose lacks flourish, what I'm saying is that we should be demanding to know exactly what happened on that day and who did what. Because what we now know is that we were lied to, and the bastards that did it and lied to us and have used that atrocity to commit an endless series of subsequent atrocities, and that their intentions are very malevolent, and that they ought to be ferreted out, and brought to justice.

Or, they're not going to stop. They're going to keep pushing and destroying and eviscerating our last remaining freedoms until we all find ourselves in a very perilous predicament indeed.

so you see that is why we should take those to task who would try to shill for the regime

men don't stay free who become complacent, and it's a lot easier to protect our (remaining) freedoms (that are under siege) than to get them back once they've been lost

men don’t stay free who become complacent, and it’s a lot easier to protect our (remaining) freedoms (that are under siege) than to get them back once they’ve been lost

A quite voluminous reply on your part. It seems obvious that you and Reed do not agree. However, it is the commenters here who are being angry and abusive; Reed was not. Me, I don’t know if there was a conspiracy or not, but I sure don’t get as bent out of shape about it as the rest of this group. Ain’t no future in it.

Nope. Just observing what the Bible says. All anti-abortion arguments are religion-based.

Genetic research has proven that the foetus is a complete human being at conception.

Nope, genetic research has proven no such thing.

using the “Bible” for the argument is ridiculous.

But, that's what the Bible says. Why would I use a scientific argument when addressing religion-based proscriptions?

Your comment about the “Bible” and “quickening”, seemed a little ridiculous to me. Should we argue the age of the earth by counting down from Adam? Map the universe using biblical references? Some might find the “Bible” an interesting historical document, but I don’t believe it should appear in the same sentence as science.
It’s sometimes difficult to argue real science with those unskilled in science, but you must be unfamiliar with the strides made in genetic research over the past 30 or so years, proving that genetically, the foetus is a human being. If you want to argue what a “human” is, or what “personhood” is, that’s rhetoric, and not my line. I’m not trying to get into the pro-life vs pro-abortion argument, I’m just pointing out that at conception, the human zygote contains 46 chromosomes, all human, genetically, that makes it a human. Legally, believe what you want.

Your comment about the “Bible” and “quickening”, seemed a little ridiculous to me. Should we argue the age of the earth by counting down from Adam?

The official Roman Catholic rejection of abortion is based upon it being "murder" -- that is, the deliberate killing of a human being. Now, I don't know about your experiences, but I've never encountered a Roman Catholic with whom one could present a "science-based argument". Roman Catholics do not accept science as science; they accept what the Pope says is science. Thus, I never, ever argue with Catholics on any basis other than religious precepts.

The Holy Bible of the Christians states that the fetus has no soul until "quickening". As you might imagine, it is difficult to get a Catholic to accept the Bible itself over the preaching of their priests -- Catholics tend to not be particularly oriented to the written word -- however, the Bible is supposedly the word of their god, and it's right there in black and white (or the occasional illuminated manuscript). I have a difficult-to-conceal contempt for religious dogma/doctrine, so, generally speaking, I ignore the shin-cracking idiots as much as possible.

No, I do not wish to argue about personhood, or about what is a human being. No, a fetus is not a human being under any consistent set of definitions. It CAN become a human being. It IS human tissue. It IS a developing organism which, in my opinion, becomes a human being when it can survive outside the womb as a human survives -- by breathing air, consuming water and nutrients, and continuing to develop and grow.

Why Fred keeps writing about conspiracy theories, whether he is paid to do so and, if so, by whom, are questions about which I have no information whatever. However, what Fred writes seems to be exactly the kind of trollish crap one would expect from an agent of cognitive infiltration such as Cass Sunstein, Obama’s one-time Information Tsar, proposed be deployed by the US government to counter conspiracy theories, particularly about 9/11, (i.e., conspiracy theories about 9/11 other than the official conspiracy theory).

In his proposal (see link above) Sunstein held that such action was needed because conspiracy theorists could turn violent. This seems a far-fetched assumption. I don’t recall reading about 9/11 Truther, or Fake Moon Landing riots. But given the nature of Sunstein’s proposal, he could hardly have said that a lot of folks are waking up to the crimes of the state, and the state must therefore discredit these people before their ideas spread and destroy the credibility of government.

In any case, Fred is precisely the kind of old hack you might expect to be commissioned for such work. The possibility that he is, in fact, on the government payroll for this purpose, is of course merely that, a possibility, and like all reasonable conspiracy theorists, I don’t assert that this or any other possibility is a fact when I have no evidence.

But whatever his motivation, the problem with Fred’s efforts here is that his approach is inappropriate for the audience, which is made up mostly pretty reasonable people hardly likely to be taken in by Fred’s mix of drivel and derision against any who might question anything reported by the New York Times, or whatever source it is that Fred takes as the fount of true truth.

If you have a sense of humor (and I do) you have to admit that Fred's essay is pretty funny. There are a lot of wacky conspiracy theories out there.
OTOH, Fred's argument has this logical fallacy: just because many, or even most, conspiracy theories are false, that doesn't prove they all are. As James Corbett's excellent Truth video noted, the official story of 9/11 is itself "A Conspiracy Theory."
To the argument that hundreds of disparate individuals can't keep a secret, we have the counter-examples of D-Day and the Manhattan Project.
This is, I believe, the Ultimate Conspiracy Theory -- that undercover government operatives are promoting the craziest theories to discredit the real ones.

To the argument that hundreds of disparate individuals can’t keep a secret, we have the counter-examples of D-Day and the Manhattan Project.

We’re all well aware of the existence of D-Day and the Manhattan Project.

Your comment about the "Bible" and "quickening", seemed a little ridiculous to me. Should we argue the age of the earth by counting down from Adam? Map the universe using biblical references? Some might find the "Bible" an interesting historical document, but I don't believe it should appear in the same sentence as science.
It's sometimes difficult to argue real science with those unskilled in science, but you must be unfamiliar with the strides made in genetic research over the past 30 or so years, proving that genetically, the foetus is a human being. If you want to argue what a "human" is, or what "personhood" is, that's rhetoric, and not my line. I'm not trying to get into the pro-life vs pro-abortion argument, I'm just pointing out that at conception, the human zygote contains 46 chromosomes, all human, genetically, that makes it a human. Legally, believe what you want.

Your comment about the “Bible” and “quickening”, seemed a little ridiculous to me. Should we argue the age of the earth by counting down from Adam?

The official Roman Catholic rejection of abortion is based upon it being “murder” — that is, the deliberate killing of a human being. Now, I don’t know about your experiences, but I’ve never encountered a Roman Catholic with whom one could present a “science-based argument”. Roman Catholics do not accept science as science; they accept what the Pope says is science. Thus, I never, ever argue with Catholics on any basis other than religious precepts.

The Holy Bible of the Christians states that the fetus has no soul until “quickening”. As you might imagine, it is difficult to get a Catholic to accept the Bible itself over the preaching of their priests — Catholics tend to not be particularly oriented to the written word — however, the Bible is supposedly the word of their god, and it’s right there in black and white (or the occasional illuminated manuscript). I have a difficult-to-conceal contempt for religious dogma/doctrine, so, generally speaking, I ignore the shin-cracking idiots as much as possible.

No, I do not wish to argue about personhood, or about what is a human being. No, a fetus is not a human being under any consistent set of definitions. It CAN become a human being. It IS human tissue. It IS a developing organism which, in my opinion, becomes a human being when it can survive outside the womb as a human survives — by breathing air, consuming water and nutrients, and continuing to develop and grow.

Yes, I have met Roman Catholics with whom I can speak about science and I have never met a Roman Catholic who wholeheartedly accepted every edict of the Pope.
Your argument about what constitutes a human being is one of semantics, so it need go no further. The definition I accept is that a human is made up of human DNA, which the human zygote is, the argument over whether the mother should be permitted to abort her baby is a legal and political one, where apparently even books about fairy tales can be used to further one's position.

When's the last time a conspiracy was exposed, the lies revealed, and the real truth officially committed to the history books? Yeah, it was back when Mattel Shootin' Shells fired REAL BULLETS. I saw it on TV.

“When’s the last time a conspiracy was exposed, the lies revealed, and the real truth officially committed to the history books? Yeah, it was back when Mattel Shootin’ Shells fired REAL BULLETS. I saw it on TV.”

It looks like you subscribe to the nihilist point of view. You may be correct, but still, a different group of people harbor an unrealistic desire to try to know the truth and to try to promote justice. The reality may be perceived the same for both groups, but the latter gets some satisfaction from trying.

We need a program of psychosurgery for political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically manipulated. The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electrically control the brain. Some day armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain

When the two enterprising interviewers inquired of Josè Maria Delgado (who happened to be a Jewish Spanish, as well as an eminent neuroscientist) whether he had actually made that statement, he didn’t reply in the negative; he just avoided replying at all.

Defacing one’s rhetorical or cultural opponents’ arguments to easily find them groundless and indirectly picture their makers as fool is called the straw man fallacy.
I know of no decently reflexive individual who buys into the official 9/11 account.
Reputable people have brought the reader’s attention to the fact that some people with ties to Israeli secret services were present and recorded the planes-towers collision while in a celebratory mood, and formed the hypothesis that Israel knew of the attack beforehand.

Rebekah Roth wrote a fictionalized story of the Twin Towers Attack which starts with Methodical illusion. Accidentally on an interview the Attack’s day, Trump expressed his disbelief at the way one of the buildings had collapsed. Many respected engineers have.

Something substantial is being hidden, and frankly you seem to care about Israel’s role in it way more than I and most unbelievers do. I want to believe the main concer of the unbelievers is the state of a nation where truth is so patently hidden to the citizenry, and with such an unanimous consensus on doing so by all the institutions that matter.
Even the pretence of democracy has been abandoned.

Either Ron Unz is conspiring with Fred Reed to energize readers, or Fred has been kidnapped and sedated and a CIA contractor has stolen his identity in deep Mexico. Surely Mr. Reed knows that Carl Sagan and almost all other space scientists think intelligent life exists outside earth. I agree that aliens not only visited earth, but may still be here! The SR-71 for example, as well as no nuclear wars since 1945.

The proof of this hoax is his statement: "that the government hid the existence of large number of POWs left behind in Vietnam."

Mr. Reed must know that the owner of this blog is a strong believer in this "conspiracy." So Mr. Reed is just jerking us around for fun, or has lost his mind due to Padre Kino abuse, or was removed in Mexico and replace by a NY Times "reporter."

Aliens?

Anything may “be” “here”.
Our threedimensional, spatiotemporal world is a construction of our mind. There may be anything beyond the most daring phantasy’s reach right here beside us, only in dimensions we don’t perceive.

Doubting that possibility corresponds to believe our species a species of Gods.

"endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate…"

Define "reputable media outlet." The only media outlets I've seen that tried to debunk the assertion have been anything but reputable. The facts outlined in "The Color of Crime" come from the actual crime statistics and aren't a figment of someone's imagination. Black crime rates are excessively high and are completely out of proportion to their population size. The crime statistics speak for themselves and are denied only by those who have a vested interest in denying them, or the terminally naïve.

Your comment about the “Bible” and “quickening”, seemed a little ridiculous to me. Should we argue the age of the earth by counting down from Adam?

The official Roman Catholic rejection of abortion is based upon it being "murder" -- that is, the deliberate killing of a human being. Now, I don't know about your experiences, but I've never encountered a Roman Catholic with whom one could present a "science-based argument". Roman Catholics do not accept science as science; they accept what the Pope says is science. Thus, I never, ever argue with Catholics on any basis other than religious precepts.

The Holy Bible of the Christians states that the fetus has no soul until "quickening". As you might imagine, it is difficult to get a Catholic to accept the Bible itself over the preaching of their priests -- Catholics tend to not be particularly oriented to the written word -- however, the Bible is supposedly the word of their god, and it's right there in black and white (or the occasional illuminated manuscript). I have a difficult-to-conceal contempt for religious dogma/doctrine, so, generally speaking, I ignore the shin-cracking idiots as much as possible.

No, I do not wish to argue about personhood, or about what is a human being. No, a fetus is not a human being under any consistent set of definitions. It CAN become a human being. It IS human tissue. It IS a developing organism which, in my opinion, becomes a human being when it can survive outside the womb as a human survives -- by breathing air, consuming water and nutrients, and continuing to develop and grow.

Yes, I have met Roman Catholics with whom I can speak about science and I have never met a Roman Catholic who wholeheartedly accepted every edict of the Pope.
Your argument about what constitutes a human being is one of semantics, so it need go no further. The definition I accept is that a human is made up of human DNA, which the human zygote is, the argument over whether the mother should be permitted to abort her baby is a legal and political one, where apparently even books about fairy tales can be used to further one’s position.

Yes, I have met Roman Catholics with whom I can speak about science and I have never met a Roman Catholic who wholeheartedly accepted every edict of the Pope.

You are, indeed, fortunate. Religion is a peculiar thing. There can be people who believe themselves to be Roman Catholics, yet who reject central dogma of the Roman Catholic church. It's like calling one's self a pole vaulter, because you rilly rilly WANT to be a pole vaulter.

There isn't a world religion that is not a pile of absolute crap. The human need to cling to silliness, for whatever reason, is a constant marvel.

namely the absurd claim, endlessly debunked by every reputable media outlet, that American blacks have an unusually high crime rate…

Are you being tongue-in-cheek? I don't know where "unusual" starts, but the FBI crime table show a murder rate 3.67X a rate imputable to their percentage of population, and a 7.1X rate for violent crime in general. I'm sure you know your way to the tables, but, if necessary, I can provide the links.

It’s called irony. Geez, I’ve got Asperger’s Syndrome, and even I can see that.

For somebody as smart as you claim to be, so much smarter than the rest of us… maybe you’re not, after all.

A quiet though intense fear of having one’s SS checks cancelled by government often develops among older folks particularly when it is their only source of income. This symptom often is accompanied with mean spiritedness towards others, in particular towards former “comrades in arms”.

Wait, let me get this straight: people who worked all their livcs, paid taxes and behaved responsibly, when faced with a corrupt government that holds over their heads a threat of denial of that promised stipend so arduously-earned ... those people, in the infirmity and weakness of old age, should storm the Bastille, overthrow the oppressors, and fix-up everything so that a pack of worthless welfare bums, shiftless Millenials, and millions of illegal aliens should have the sweet life of leisure they so clearly deserve?

Definitely irony deficient. You should get yourself tested for Asperger’s, too. Not that I ever got tested, I’m self-diagnosed. But your level of self-unawareness is staggering. Or is it just a lack of reading comprehension skills?

Yes, I have met Roman Catholics with whom I can speak about science and I have never met a Roman Catholic who wholeheartedly accepted every edict of the Pope.
Your argument about what constitutes a human being is one of semantics, so it need go no further. The definition I accept is that a human is made up of human DNA, which the human zygote is, the argument over whether the mother should be permitted to abort her baby is a legal and political one, where apparently even books about fairy tales can be used to further one's position.

Yes, I have met Roman Catholics with whom I can speak about science and I have never met a Roman Catholic who wholeheartedly accepted every edict of the Pope.

You are, indeed, fortunate. Religion is a peculiar thing. There can be people who believe themselves to be Roman Catholics, yet who reject central dogma of the Roman Catholic church. It’s like calling one’s self a pole vaulter, because you rilly rilly WANT to be a pole vaulter.

There isn’t a world religion that is not a pile of absolute crap. The human need to cling to silliness, for whatever reason, is a constant marvel.

I would think someone who doesn't actually practice the Roman Catholic religion, or any Christian religion for that matter, might consider themselves to still be a member of that religion simply as an historical and familial tradition. How many people who call themselves Jews are out there stoning adulterers or homosexuals? You're right to call it silliness, and in most cases it is silliness, religion only becomes dangerous when misguided people try to impose their beliefs on others.

Yes, I have met Roman Catholics with whom I can speak about science and I have never met a Roman Catholic who wholeheartedly accepted every edict of the Pope.
Your argument about what constitutes a human being is one of semantics, so it need go no further. The definition I accept is that a human is made up of human DNA, which the human zygote is, the argument over whether the mother should be permitted to abort her baby is a legal and political one, where apparently even books about fairy tales can be used to further one's position.

I have never met a Roman Catholic who wholeheartedly accepted every edict of the Pope.

is the operative word here “wholeheartedly”?

if they’re Roman Catholics, then by definition they consider the Pope infallible
every edict

if they’re Roman Catholics, then by definition they consider the Pope infallible

Not so. Only when the Pope speaks ex cathedra is his word deemed infallible. As Wikipedia informs us:

Catholic theologians agree that both Pope Pius IX's 1854 definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and Pope Pius XII's 1950 definition of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary are instances of papal infallibility, a fact confirmed by the Church's magisterium. However, theologians disagree about what other documents qualify.

Obviously any person not accepting these beliefs isn't going to profess Catholicism. Instead, they'd be a Quaker or an adherent of some other wishy-washy outfit.

Yes, I have met Roman Catholics with whom I can speak about science and I have never met a Roman Catholic who wholeheartedly accepted every edict of the Pope.

You are, indeed, fortunate. Religion is a peculiar thing. There can be people who believe themselves to be Roman Catholics, yet who reject central dogma of the Roman Catholic church. It's like calling one's self a pole vaulter, because you rilly rilly WANT to be a pole vaulter.

There isn't a world religion that is not a pile of absolute crap. The human need to cling to silliness, for whatever reason, is a constant marvel.

I would think someone who doesn’t actually practice the Roman Catholic religion, or any Christian religion for that matter, might consider themselves to still be a member of that religion simply as an historical and familial tradition. How many people who call themselves Jews are out there stoning adulterers or homosexuals? You’re right to call it silliness, and in most cases it is silliness, religion only becomes dangerous when misguided people try to impose their beliefs on others.

Fred, I think you misrepresent the motives of many who pasted your earlier column. There are many legitimate questions about 9-11, but you treated the whole thing as a joke.

The book “A Texan Looks at Lyndon” was dismissed as nothing more than hysterical propaganda in 1964 and was removed from bookshelves and newstands. While some of the stuff was outlandish, we now know that many of the book’s charges about LBJ were true, thanks to the work of Robert A. Caro and others.

As commenter “Rich” said earlier, such episodes as the Gulf of Tonkin incident and the attack on the Liberty took place. They happened.

I have never met a Roman Catholic who wholeheartedly accepted every edict of the Pope.

is the operative word here "wholeheartedly"?

if they're Roman Catholics, then by definition they consider the Pope infallible every edict

but that doesn't mean they do so "wholeheartedly"!

if they’re Roman Catholics, then by definition they consider the Pope infallible

Not so. Only when the Pope speaks ex cathedra is his word deemed infallible. As Wikipedia informs us:

Catholic theologians agree that both Pope Pius IX’s 1854 definition of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception of Mary and Pope Pius XII’s 1950 definition of the dogma of the Assumption of Mary are instances of papal infallibility, a fact confirmed by the Church’s magisterium. However, theologians disagree about what other documents qualify.

Obviously any person not accepting these beliefs isn’t going to profess Catholicism. Instead, they’d be a Quaker or an adherent of some other wishy-washy outfit.

Not so. Only when the Pope speaks ex cathedra is his word deemed infallible.

OK, but that’s kind of splitting hairs isn’t it

obviously I don’t mean to suggest that every word a Pope says is the infallible word of God Himself, but what I’m suggesting is that even when he speaks ex cathedra, I still question his infallibility. Which I know is fine with everyone. But must all Catholics, by definition, consider his ‘apostolic authority’ infallible and the God’s honest truth? Or they’re simply not Catholics, by definition?

when the Pope was silent on the question of homosexual marriage, when it was being voted on in Ireland, is when I knew he was a fraud. And as such, what does that say about the Catholic religion?

I am very close to a lot of Catholics, and would never disparage their religion (to them personally ; ), but it seems to me I don’t have to. The way the Vatican protects those boy rapists is doing far more to disparage the Catholic church and religion than I could ever do, even if I wanted to.

my main beef with the Catholic church (other than that POS that’s in there now demanding America do away with its borders), are their strictures against birth control, when the Third World is exploding with the poor. No problem says the Pope, just invite them all into your communities until you’re all poor. Yea!

my main beef with the Catholic church … are their strictures against birth control, when the Third World is exploding with the poor.

Well the Pope’s strictures on birth control are evidently not directed at the Third World, where they are, as you say, “exploding with the poor,” and cannot, therefore, be practicing birth control.

Presumably, therefore, it is in the West, where fertility rates are without exception below the replacement rate, that the Pope’s strictures on birth control are to be obeyed.

Since I oppose the genocide of the Western nations by state-instigated reproductive failure combined with mass replacement immigration, I think the Pope’s position on birth control is absolutely correct.

True, if the burgeoning masses of the Third World were to emulate the West in restricting their population by indulgence in what Malthus (a Church of England clergyman evidently in agreement with the Pope on the matter of birth control) called vice, that might not be a bad thing in terms of poverty, etc.

However, I believe it would, in fact, be a very bad thing as it has proved to be in the West, since it would mean that not just the people of the West, but the entire human race, had embarked on a course of genetic degeneration through the near total cessation of selection for the physical, intellectual, moral and emotional characteristics that make for survival under conditions of resource limitation, i.e., the normal conditions of human life except during the last three or four generations in the West.

And if the Pope’s policy on birth control leads to near universal poverty, that is entirely in keeping with Christ’s teaching: “Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth.”

Presumably, therefore, it is in the West, where fertility rates are without exception below the replacement rate, that the Pope’s strictures on birth control are to be obeyed.

Oh, I see. God notices that fertility rates are down in the West. It being of prime God-concern that fertility rates be globally balanced, God directs the Pope, through the Holy Infallibility Channel, to exempt non-Western Catholics from the Birth Control Rule, but to crack down on Westerners. God does not explain to the Pope why exactly it is that rules can be broken when Holy Balance is at stake, no, this is all about an exemption that God told YOU about.

What a crock of ridiculous, blind, ham-handed, doctrinaire RC BULLSHIT. How you insufferable assholes can live with the stupidity you promote, I cannot imagine.

my main beef with the Catholic church ... are their strictures against birth control, when the Third World is exploding with the poor.

Well the Pope's strictures on birth control are evidently not directed at the Third World, where they are, as you say, "exploding with the poor," and cannot, therefore, be practicing birth control.

Presumably, therefore, it is in the West, where fertility rates are without exception below the replacement rate, that the Pope's strictures on birth control are to be obeyed.

Since I oppose the genocide of the Western nations by state-instigated reproductive failure combined with mass replacement immigration, I think the Pope's position on birth control is absolutely correct.

True, if the burgeoning masses of the Third World were to emulate the West in restricting their population by indulgence in what Malthus (a Church of England clergyman evidently in agreement with the Pope on the matter of birth control) called vice, that might not be a bad thing in terms of poverty, etc.

However, I believe it would, in fact, be a very bad thing as it has proved to be in the West, since it would mean that not just the people of the West, but the entire human race, had embarked on a course of genetic degeneration through the near total cessation of selection for the physical, intellectual, moral and emotional characteristics that make for survival under conditions of resource limitation, i.e., the normal conditions of human life except during the last three or four generations in the West.

And if the Pope's policy on birth control leads to near universal poverty, that is entirely in keeping with Christ's teaching: "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth."

Presumably, therefore, it is in the West, where fertility rates are without exception below the replacement rate, that the Pope’s strictures on birth control are to be obeyed.

Oh, I see. God notices that fertility rates are down in the West. It being of prime God-concern that fertility rates be globally balanced, God directs the Pope, through the Holy Infallibility Channel, to exempt non-Western Catholics from the Birth Control Rule, but to crack down on Westerners. God does not explain to the Pope why exactly it is that rules can be broken when Holy Balance is at stake, no, this is all about an exemption that God told YOU about.

What a crock of ridiculous, blind, ham-handed, doctrinaire RC BULLSHIT. How you insufferable assholes can live with the stupidity you promote, I cannot imagine.

October 2016, Prof. Tony Hall suspended without pay at University of Lethbridge (see his YouTube video) for questioning the official narrative on the 9-11 and Israeli’s human rights infringements in the calmest, most objective way you could conceive, due to the intervention of, well, the usual ones.

Nobody gets so hard-bent on making it to discuss matters a law transgression when they are confident the official truths can stand inquiry.
This applies to some of WWII’s aspects too. The West is parodying itself hard, making parts of the history of WWII illegal to study. At the same time, this illegality’s enforcers are proving to any thinking person that the official truth concerning those aspects of WWII is false.

God directs the Pope, through the Holy Infallibility Channel, to exempt non-Western Catholics from the Birth Control Rule, but to crack down on Westerners.

The Pope’s remarks on birth control are not considered to be ex cathedra, or therefore deemed by the church to be infallible.

Who said the Pope exempts non-Western Catholics from “Birth Control Rule” (i.e., the rule not to use birth control)? It would be an idiotic thing for the Pope to do since non-Western Catholics are of their own volition not using birth control, so exemption from the rule not to use birth control would make no difference.

God directs the Pope, through the Holy Infallibility Channel, to exempt non-Western Catholics from the Birth Control Rule, but to crack down on Westerners.

The Pope's remarks on birth control are not considered to be ex cathedra, or therefore deemed by the church to be infallible.

Who said the Pope exempts non-Western Catholics from "Birth Control Rule" (i.e., the rule not to use birth control)? It would be an idiotic thing for the Pope to do since non-Western Catholics are of their own volition not using birth control, so exemption from the rule not to use birth control would make no difference.

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